Palestinian ParentText for Crisis: A Parenting Chabot in War

April 28, 2026 updated by: University of Oxford

ParentText for Crisis: A Randomised Controlled Trial of Chatbot-Delivered Mental Health and Parenting Content For Palestinian Caregivers in Jordan

The primary aim of this research is to evaluate if ParentText for Crisis helps improve the following outcomes among Palestinian caregivers living in Jordan: a.) Improving caregiver mental health; b.) Improving positive parenting practices; c.) Reducing violence against children

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

Investigators are conducting an individually randomised controlled trial (cRCT) with 250 Palestinian participants recruited from Jerash Camp. This research is an evaluation of Palestinian ParentText for Crisis in Jordan, a rule-based chatbot to provide tips to strengthen parental mental health, improve parenting practices, and help parents support children in crisis settings. This randomised controlled trial is conducted through a collaboration with the University of Oxford, Parenting for Lifelong Health (PLH), and Sanadak. ParentText for Crisis content is adapted from PLH and "Hope Groups", which is a mental health and parenting programme originally developed from PLH for war and crisis settings. Hope Groups, delivered either in-person, have demonstrated effectiveness in improving caregiver mental health and parenting practices in crisis settings among Palestinians in Jerash Camp, Jordan. This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of delivering this mental health and parenting content via 9 chatbot-delivered lessons over WhatsApp to Palestinian families within the same camp (Jerash Camp, Jordan). The RCT includes an intervention arm consisting of individuals who are randomised to join CrisisText immediately (n=125), and a waitlist control arm consisting of individuals who are randomised to join CrisisText (n=125) in a second cohort. This is an individually randomised study, with each individual participant as the unit of randomisation. Randomisation will be deployed using the treatment_assign function in the RCT package in R.

The primary aim is to test the effectiveness of ParentText for Crisis 30-days after enrolment, using an individually randomised controlled trial design. Investigators hypothesise that CrisisText will lead to statistically significant improvements in caregiver mental health and positive parenting practices, and reductions in violence against children.

  • Timeline will be as follows:
  • Individuals who are randomised to the intervention arm will be invited to join an in-person onboarding session. At this session, participants will be given a trigger word to message to the chatbot's number on WhatsApp. Once participants send this message, CrisisText will guide them through informed consent, followed by a short (8 question) baseline survey. After this, the chatbot will begin delivering the first intervention session. Participants will be encouraged to complete this first session at the in-person event, then complete one addition session every day for the next 8 days.
  • After the intervention arm concludes the CrisisText intervention, survey questions will appear again. (This data is for exploratory pre-post comparisons.)
  • At +30 days after onboarding, the chatbot will message participants to complete a follow-up survey including the same survey questions. (This +30 days follow-up is considered trial endline.)
  • During the week of the +30-day follow-up for the intervention arm, the wait-list control arm will be gathered for an in-person meeting to begin the intervention. At this in-person meeting, participants will complete informed consent and a survey. This data from the control arm will be compared with the intervention arm at their +30 day follow up for the primary trial analysis.
  • Therefore, this trial's primary analysis will involve a single timepoint comparison: Estimating differences between the intervention arm at 30-day follow-up and the untreated control arm at this same calendar timepoint. To assess baseline balance in this randomised trial, investigators will compare non-time-varying participant demographic variables (e.g., age, sex, number of children) between arms. If there is imbalance, investigators will control for demographic variables in the trial analysis.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

198

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • Jordan
      • Jerash, Jordan
        • Jerash Camp

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

  • Adult
  • Older Adult

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Description

Sanadak, a charity in Jordan, will collaborate with the camp to recruit a list of 250 participants. All N=250 individuals, who indicate interested in participating, will be randomised to the intervention or wait-list control arm.

  • Inclusion Criteria:
  • Adult (aged >=18)
  • Parent or caregiver of >=1 child
  • Living in Jerash Camp, Jerash, Jordan (a refugee camp for Palestinians from Gaza)
  • Have access to a phone with WhatsApp

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Treatment
  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: ParentText for Crisis
A rule-based chatbot to provide tips to strengthen parental mental health, improve parenting practices, and help parents support children in crisis settings
Behavioral: ParentText for Crisis
A rule-based chatbot to provide tips to strengthen parental mental health, improve parenting practices, and help parents support children in crisis settings
No Intervention: Comparison Group
Wait-List Control Group

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Caregiver Depression
Time Frame: Intervention arm: Outcome is collected at trial baseline and +30 days post-baseline. Control arm: Outcome is collected at +30 days post-baseline.
Caregiver depression is measured via Patient Health Questionnaire - 2 (PHQ-2). PHQ-2 includes two questions on depression, with likert scale answer options ranging 0-3. Higher scores indicate higher levels of depression.
Intervention arm: Outcome is collected at trial baseline and +30 days post-baseline. Control arm: Outcome is collected at +30 days post-baseline.
Playful Parenting
Time Frame: Intervention arm: Outcome is collected at trial baseline and +30 days post-baseline. Control arm: Outcome is collected at +30 days post-baseline.
Parenting Practices are measured via a positive parenting item adapted from Alabama Parenting Questionnaire, measuring frequency of playing with children in the past week. Survey responses are reported in days of occurrence within the past week (0-7), with higher scores indicating higher level of playful parenting.
Intervention arm: Outcome is collected at trial baseline and +30 days post-baseline. Control arm: Outcome is collected at +30 days post-baseline.

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Caregiver Hopefulness
Time Frame: Intervention arm: Outcome is collected at trial baseline and +30 days post-baseline. Control arm: Outcome is collected at +30 days post-baseline.
Caregiver Hopefulness is measured through an item building on positive psychology theory, asking, "How many days in the past week did you feel hopeful about the future?" Answer options range from 0-7 to reflect days of occurrence in the past week. Higher scores indicate high levels of hopefulness.
Intervention arm: Outcome is collected at trial baseline and +30 days post-baseline. Control arm: Outcome is collected at +30 days post-baseline.
Parenting Practices
Time Frame: Intervention arm: Outcome is collected at trial baseline and +30 days post-baseline. Control arm: Outcome is collected at +30 days post-baseline.
Parenting Practices are measured through a parental involvement question adapted from Alabama Parenting Questionnaire and a Parental Supervision question adapted from Alabama Parenting Questionnaire. Answer options for both questions are reported in days of occurrence in the past week (0-7), with higher scores indicating higher levels of positive parenting practices.
Intervention arm: Outcome is collected at trial baseline and +30 days post-baseline. Control arm: Outcome is collected at +30 days post-baseline.
Violence Against Children
Time Frame: Intervention arm: Outcome is collected at trial baseline and +30 days post-baseline. Control arm: Outcome is collected at +30 days post-baseline.
Violence Against Children is measured via 2 questions on physical and emotional violence actions from the ISPCAN Child Abuse Screening Tool for Trials (ICAST-Trial). Questions ask about frequency of occurrence in days in the past week, with answer options range from 0-7. Higher scores indicate higher frequency of violence against children.
Intervention arm: Outcome is collected at trial baseline and +30 days post-baseline. Control arm: Outcome is collected at +30 days post-baseline.

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

University of Oxford

Collaborators

Sanadak

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

February 11, 2026

Primary Completion (Actual)

April 26, 2026

Study Completion (Actual)

April 26, 2026

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

March 9, 2026

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

March 20, 2026

First Posted (Actual)

March 27, 2026

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

May 4, 2026

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

April 28, 2026

Last Verified

February 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 2256451 Palestinian Evaluation
  • https://osf.io/q5s4k/overview (Registry Identifier: Open Science Framework. This is a carbon-copy of an OSF preregistration on December 5, 2025.)

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

YES

IPD Plan Description

IPD, including all outcome and demographic outcomes, will be shared.

IPD Sharing Time Frame

A brief protocol is available on Open Science Framework: https://osf.io/q5s4k/overview. The Statistical Analysis Plan will be registered on Open Science Framework prior to any analysis (estimated date: end of March 2026). Consent forms and analytic code will be posted on OSF at time of manuscript submission.

IPD Sharing Access Criteria

Requests for data access can be made to Sydney Tucker at sydney.tucker@spi.ox.ac.uk. Anonymous data will be made publicly available after RCT results are published.

IPD Sharing Supporting Information Type

  • STUDY_PROTOCOL
  • SAP
  • ICF
  • ANALYTIC_CODE

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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